Threat of Addiction to Prescription Painkillers Heightened With Mental Illness

NEWPORT, N.H.—Desperation drove Timothy Fazio, a former Marine, to turn up around midnight at a veterans' hospital near Boston. His post-traumatic stress disorder was causing flashbacks and blackouts. He had leapt from a balcony.

And he had overdosed, twice, on painkillers originally prescribed for a hand injury suffered in Iraq.